Solo

Published May 4, 2019

Film info

Title Solo

Director Ron Howard

Year 2018

Run time 2hrs 15m

Genres Science Fiction, Action, Adventure

Tagline Never tell him the odds

Board the Millennium Falcon and journey to a galaxy far, far away in Solo: A Star Wars Story, an spic action adventure with the most beloved scoundrel in the galaxy. Through a series of daring escapades deep within a dark and dangerous criminal underworld, Han Solo befriends his mighty future copilot Chewbacca and meets the notorious gambler Lando Calrissian, in a journey that will set the course of one of the Star Wars saga's most unlikely heroes.

Live blog

Time

Comment

3:06

When she says Han it sounds like hun. U ok Han.

8:39

Don’t know whether to feel sorry for the local police in this because they are stormtroopers.

14:22

Wait, his name was given to him by the Empire? OMG.

18:44

“I got kicked out of the Imperial Army for having a mind of my own.”

24:52

I bet that’s a good shower, after all that mud.

26:14

Curious where he would have learnt Wookie.

33:50

That train track is amazing. Love if that was real.

41:35

“Sorry I punched your face.” “It happens more often than you’d think.”

50:57

“You’d need an incredibly fast ship and a brilliant pilot.” But we know he can do it. Spoiler alert.

53:06

Lando!!

57:53

He’s wearing a cape, too.

1:00:18

“Let go of the mean man’s face.”

1:05:22

Holo-chess rage.

1:08:34

“You need anything?’ “Equal rights?”

1:16:28

I love the little robots that are just legs.

1:26:44

A good feeling! For the first and last time.

1:32:36

“Left-ish.” That’s my kind of directions.

1:43:06

“We’re not marauders. We’re allies.”

1:46:18

No weapons, he says, even though Chewie has two bullet belts on open display.

2:00:05

He definitely shot first that time.

Thoughts

The negative reviews that this film has garnered had me a bit nervous about what on earth I was going to watch, and that’s why it’s taken so long to get round to viewing it. But actually, it was an alright film. There wasn’t really anything wrong with it as films go, the problem is just that it didn’t really add anything to the Star Wars story.

Whereas Rogue One bridged the gap between the two trilogies and added a new dimension to the facts we already knew, this one just fleshed out some bits and pieces but added nothing new. We know Han is a jack-the-lad scrappy trickster. We know he screws over Lando. We know that he is a great pilot, and we know that he did the Kessel Run in very few parsecs. There’s no new information here, and there is something of a lack of jeopardy because of it.

On top of that, whilst Alden Ehrenreich does nothing particularly wrong, he really doesn’t have the gravitas to pull off a classic character such as Han Solo. You can forgive him not being so cocky and confident to begin with, but he should grow into that as the adventure unfolds and be the lovable rogue by the end. I just don’t feel it.

There are highlights though. Phoebe Waller-Bridge is fab, it’s always great to see the Millennium Falcon (although I think it’s an injustice that it turns out the ship wasn’t super fast, he just found a shortcut), and Glover as Lando was magnificent. Now he did have the gravitas we were looking for. Plus, seeing how Han and Chewie met is a little bonus. So a few bits to take away but ultimately I don’t think I would have missed out by not watching this.